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Title: The Cement Garden

Author: Ian McEwan

Narrator: Julian Rhind-Tutt

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-13-14

Publisher: Random House Audiobooks

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

In the relentless summer heat, four abruptly orphaned children retreat into a shadowy, isolated world, and find their own strange and unsettling ways of fending for themselves

Members Reviews:

Review without Spoiler - Pros & Cons

The Cement Garden was written in 1978 a is a very short novel (hardcover 153 pages) authored by Ian McEwan. I list the pros and cons of this book without giving a spoiler:

1. This short novel had me from the beginning and I read the book in its entirety in one sitting.

2. I found the taboo subjects of consensual sibling incest, gender identity / communication, coming of age, and attraction to be written in a realistic manner, as well as the subjects of death and dying and family communication.

Cons:

1. The only part I don't like at all was the last two paragraphs. The ending to me makes little sense to Derek's motive as he will face repercussions too. It would have seemed a better ending just to leave them all in bed without knowing how much longer they could go on or to continue the story (so I just made up my own ending in my mind).

2. WARNING: IF STORIES THAT INVOLVE SIBLING INCEST UPSET YOU, THIS BOOK MIGHT NOT BE FOR YOU.

Short, dark and brilliant

Sometimes short fiction is the best fiction and I think it's the mark of a great writer when they can capture a world and the lives within that world in the space of less than 200 pages. Clocking in at 152 pages The Cement Garden is on the border between long short story or short novel but either way it's top quality writing.

An English family living in the rundown part of town lose their father to a heart attack then their mother to sickness. The children hide their newly orphaned status and try to continue life as best they can. They experience all the usual trials of puberty and growing up with no guidance as they idle away the days in their ramshackle old house. Dark undercurrents of sexuality, incest and loss bubble away beneath the surface of this book and the author portrays what life is like when you have no-one very well.

Easily read in a single sitting this book will haunt you for weeks afterwards.

The Children of the Rock

It is hard not to like anything written by Ian McEwan. He's a master story teller. The Cement Garden is about four children who, having lost their parents about the same time, are left alone to to take care of themselves. Thus, unsupervised they gradually succumb to their lower instincts and forget the norms of behavior as taught by their parents. This transformation is so gradual and so skillfully presented by McEwan that we, the readers, find ourselves at a loss when we reach the macabre ending. How did we get to this point? He takes us step by step through the daily lives of these children. Though each child or teen is locked in his or her own world, together they form a subculture of their own which is in total contrast with the one outside of their isolated house. One wonders, however if the foundation of this breakdown was not already laid down by the parents before they each died by different natural causes. When the father set the first rock in the garden.

It ended too soon

I thought it was the beginning of a really good novel, and then it ended. I guess I didn't realize it was a short story 'til it was over.

the cement garden

The book is beautifully written, the theme is very original and unique.

I would have given the book 5 stars, except for the characters.